A blog dealing with either the joy of cinema or the agony of cinema--nothing in between.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Killer Elite

When the mentor (Robert De Niro) of a British special ops agent (Jason Statham) is kidnapped by an oil sheik, the agent must spring into action and eliminate the three agents of a secret assassination agency who murdered the skeik's sons. After the first killing, the secret agent's mission becomes clear the leader of the secret squad (Clive Owen) and the two begin to play a cat and mouse as the truth behind the mission unravels. I think the studio's thinking with "Killer Elite" was throw three big stars at this thing and hopefully the audience won't notice they've got nothing to back them up. The leads are pretty good here (why won't De Niro stop committing himself to crap) but the filmmakers themselves don't even believe in the material. You can actually sense them getting bored with the down scenes as they itch for the next shoot 'em up action sequence, and during those sequences I was checking my watch.